Minneapolis' Mitropoulos

Three years ago Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony, took a vacation. To pinch hit for Maestro Koussevitzky the orchestra's board of directors picked an obscure, lean, bald-headed Greek named Dimitri Mitropoulos. Boston's Brahmins, who thought all Greeks ran lunch wagons, had never heard of Conductor Mitropoulos. At the way he bounded to his place on the stage and went into action, they turned pale with alarm.

Not in many years had they seen such an exhibition of jumping, crouching and beating the air as this slippery-skulled Greek gave them. But under his jumping-jack direction the staid Boston Symphony, churned into a lather of excitement, surpassed itself. Delighted Boston critics gave Mitropoulos full marks, even hinted at comparisons with the great Koussevitzky himself. When he came back a second time, Conductor Mitropoulos made almost too much of a hit. After that Maestro Mitropoulos did not guest-conduct in Boston again.

But next year, after Eugene Ormandy had left the Minneapolis Symphony to go to Philadelphia, Maestro Mitropoulos got Ormandy's job. Minneapolitans soon found that their new Greek had a mind of his own. In a small dormitory room on the University of Minnesota campus with a studio couch, an upright piano and two trunks, he lived the life of a monk. When he did go out for an evening, it was not with Minneapolis' dowagers but with some fiddler or bassoonist from his own orchestra. A devout Greek Orthodox Catholic, he wore a crucifix inside his shirt and a medallion of the Virgin Mary in the lining of his coat, never ventured to conduct without them both. When he was not conducting or studying scores, he could usually be found in the gallery of a Nicollet Avenue cinema theatre.

Minneapolitans grew proud and fond of their Maestro Mitropoulos, bought out every last seat of their huge Northrop Auditorium (capacity 4,800). The men in the orchestra followed their leader with a devotion bordering on worship. Visitors discovered that some of the most brilliant and spectacular U. S. conducting since the peak days of Stokowski and Toscanini was being done in snow-crusted Minneapolis. This year, with Mitropoulos' fame spreading to bigger cities, Minneapolis tied him securely with a three-year contract.

Stuffier Minneapolitans were always a little embarrassed by Mitropoulos' lack of dignity. But last week, as their symphony rounded out its season with an appeal for funds to balance the $250,000 annual budget, they thanked their stars for it. "Never mind my dignity," said Conductor Mitropoulos. "If necessary to continue the orchestra, I'll take the men to Seventh and Nicollet [heart of downtown Minneapolis] and play there and then pass the hat."

That was not necessary. But one night last week, in the Nicollet Hotel's ballroom, Conductor Mitropoulos and his men played a concert of musical burlesques and waltzes by Johann Strauss. Then, sure enough, they did pass the hat--to some 400 of Minneapolis' solider citizens. Into it dropped $20,000 and promises that the Minneapolis Symphony's annual guarantee fund of $130,000 would be fully subscribed for the next two years.

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